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Mumbai Diary: Saturday dossier

Updated on: 07 May,2016 09:53 AM IST  | 
Team mid-day |

The city — sliced, diced and served with a dash of sauce

Mumbai Diary: Saturday dossier

Maddy's got a green thumb
Ever so often, actor R Madhavan reveals new sides to his personality. After displaying his vocational skills in a viral video of a lecture delivered at a college last year, Maddy uploaded a video of his terrace garden on Facebook this week.


The actor
The actor's fans encouraged him to post a video after he posted this photo on his Instagram account


With a little help from his gardener, the actor has managed to cultivate tomatoes, broccoli, brinjal and muskmelon too. Enough inspiration to all those who complain about the rising prices of vegetables!


The other urban poor
In urban India it has never been difficult to spot poverty. In fact, it has always been a little embarrassing to bite into a humble R30 sandwich by the road, because those who may have gone hungry for the day are staring at you. We don't need data to see poverty in India but a recent report by a popular website says there is a new urban poor who has gone hungry for the day, too, because she can eat only a R200 sandwich at Le Pain Quotidien at the end of the day. If this is true and since this is a report we are assuming it is, then we are not judging but going LMAO.

With her love for designer brands, particularly shoes, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) lived well above her earnings as a columnist in the TV show, Sex and the City
With her love for designer brands, particularly shoes, Carrie Bradshaw (Sarah Jessica Parker) lived well above her earnings as a columnist in the TV show, Sex and the City

This is not to say that such difficulties don't exist but then the problem seems to be more of choice and maturity. To add this diarist's surprise, an anonymous example given is that of a journalist. And apparently to 'network' and to grow as a hack it is important to live and look like they do in American sitcoms. If sitcoms are what has influenced the English educated 'poor', then it has to be sitcoms post Friends and Sex and the City (remember Carrie Bradshaw's designer footwear-earnings ratio?), because in Seinfeld, the ever-hungry George, the champion of penury Kramer or the feisty Elaine never seemed the kind to miss a snack because it wasn't posh.

Could we then ponder about the importance of some realistic cinema here? And about the 'urban poor' journalists surviving on Starbucks, we hope 'chawal, daal ka bhav' that always formed the fundamentals of all journalism, is back in fashion.

Confessions of another kind
With every company worth its salt pushing you to pamper your mom on Mother's Day tomorrow, there's one video that wants you turn her into your friend. Uploaded by Culture Machine on its digital channel, Blush, the less-than-three minute video presents a bunch of confessions by people, urging you to share your secrets with her since she understands you the best.

A screen grab from the video
A screen grab from the video

A girl opens up about the first time she watched porn; a boy admits he is gay; another reveals being sexually abused by his sibling and a middle-aged man apologises for stealing a part of his mom's pension account. While the video is thought provoking, this diarist wonders if one really needs Hallmark holidays like these for such epiphanies.

Filmi weekend
In the clamour of the R100-crore club, cinema that touches the senses and challenges the mind has become difficult to find. But thanks to some initiatives and centres, the discerning Mumbai film buff won't miss out on the best of cinema from across the country and beyond.

May will see such screenings at Liberty, where the cine lover will puzzle over what to miss. Nagraj Manjule's Fandry, Julie Taymor's Frida, I Shot Andy Warhol by Mary Harron, Hour of the Wolf by Ingmar Bergman and a lot more await to overwhelm.

The groovy kind of fever

Raftaar, Kannan Gill and The Viral Fever perform at a Lower Parel nightspot last evening. Pic/Pradeep Dhivar

What's cooking, Mr CM?
Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis
Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis inspects equipment at a state-of-the-art kitchen that opened at a suburban hospital recently. Pic/Satej Shinde

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